May 9th
The more I think about the issue of redundant news coverage on the web, the more I’m both perplexed and fascinated. Read the following on Facebook’s announcement of Facebook Connect — seriously, read it all:
May 4th
Microsoft withdrawing its offer to buy Yahoo is a sufficiently large story to demonstrate the problem of redundant news content on the web. Google News is currently tracking about 2,000 versions of this story. To get a better sense of why it’s a problem to have 2,000 stories about the SAME THING, I’ve reproduced about ten percent of them below — just the headlines and ledes. If you have the stomach to scroll through them all to see what else I have to say about it, check out the sources as you scroll:
UPDATE: The Google News example is reproduced here instead. You’re reading this in RSS or email a day after I posted it because this post was so large it broke my Feedburner feed. Too much content breaks the web — there you have it. Keep reading for my original argument.
April 23rd
There are two principal ways advertisers are trying to create value for consumers on the web — and they must create value because, you know, consumers are in control. On the web, advertisers can provide entertainment or information.
How effective is advertising as information on the web? See Google’s $15B in ad revenue — an $5.19 billion in ad revenue in Q1 2008. The technology of web search enabled advertisers to create value for consumers in a way that was never possible in analogue media.
April 20th
The other day Erick Schonfeld wrote a post about how he’s feeling even more overwhelmed by new web content steams like Twitter and FriendFeed, and how he’s desperately in need of a better filter. I certainly agree with Erick’s clarion call for a better filter — that’s why I’m devoting all my time to empowering mainstream journalists to filter the web through link journalism (so many of the people who are great information filters aren’t doing so on the web).
But it struck me when I was looking at Erick’s screen capture of a seemingly endless series of Twitter and FriendFeed items in Twhirl that we shouldn’t just be working on the OUTPUT problem by building better filters.
We should also be working on the INPUT problem.
How do you reduce noise on the web? Simple.
Produce less content.
April 15th
Facebook has had an update feature similar to Twitter for a while. Now Facebook has a feature that lets users add feeds from other web services like Flickr and del.icio.us — just like FriendFeed. From a technology perspective, Twitter and FriendFeed are now reducable to Facebook features. Even if those two apps are currently more robust than their equivalent Facebook features, there’s nothing to stop Facebook from copying them in their entirety.
So are Twitter and FriendFeed features, or are they companies? Eric Eldon makes a strong case that many of Facebook’s younger core users will never user Twitter or FriendFeed because the same features are available right there on Facebook.
Ironically, Twitter’s and FriendFeed’s core asset — arguably their sole competitive advantage — is their people, their users.
April 12th
For years Digg has had an active comment community, where the comments are submitted and appear on the Digg landing page, rather than on the article linked from Digg. FriendFeed got into this game by making it possible to comment on content pulled in from multiple web services, where all the comments appear on FriendFeed, rather than on those services. Today, the tech blogosphere is debating a service called Shyftr that allows users to comment on the full text of blog posts, drawn from full text RSS feeds.
These are all forms of disintermediation on the web — disintermediation defines distribution on the web, made possible by RSS and hyperlinks.
The funny thing is that disintermediation is like a hall of mirrors — there’s really no end to it.
March 31st
Seems like now would be an opportune moment to clarify the terms of Publish2’s private beta.
It would be an understatement to say that it’s tricky to run a private beta for a user base that includes the same people who cover your industry and write about new technologies.
The whole purpose of a private beta is to be able to develop and test a product without the user feedback being aired in public — so that your beta testers don’t go posting screen shots of designs that will be outdated in a few weeks, or hold you publicly to competitive claims that you haven’t made yet because your application is still evolving based on the beta feedback.
March 31st
Read Publish2’s funding announcement over at the Publish2 Blog. (Yes, you’ll have to click over to find out the details.)
Receive a free daily email newsletter with new Publishing 2.0 posts
Publish2 is a free web application that makes it easy for journalists and newsrooms to gather, organize, and publish links to the best news and sources on the web -- what we call link journalism. Our mission is to help journalism survive and thrive on the Web by empowering journalists to embrace the web's "link economy." More about Publish2
Nxtbook Customer Nominated For Digital Media Innovation Award!
We just received word that Nxtbook customer Bodas USA La Revista digital magazine was nominated for the Top Hispanic Digital Media Innovation Award, to be given out the Second Annual Hispanic Digital and Print Media Conference & ...
The Screen-Optimized Digital Magazine…
In the early days of digital magazines, readers used to complain a lot more about zooming in and out. I’d say the blame lay a little bit in the hands of the readers, but was mostly the fault of our less than intuitive interfaces. Fortunately, ...
The Fantastic Growth of Nxtbook Media
When you start a company, you don’t plan on being one of the 500 Fastest Growing Companies in the US. No you plan on working hard, being smart, growing your business, seizing opportunities, getting the best people to be part of the ...
Publishing 2.0 is a blog about the (r)evolution of media, driven by the migration of media to the Web and new digital technologies. More
Receive a free daily email newsletter with new Publishing 2.0 posts
Please email advertise at publishing2.com to inquire about advertising on Publishing 2.0.
© 2006–2007 Publishing 2.0 | 
Powered by WordPress | 
Design by Bokardo Design | About the Design
